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      Biden bans Russian oil imports in response to Ukraine invasion – US politics live

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      Key events

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      3.52pm EST

      15:52

      Poland ready to deploy all MIG-29 jets to US for Ukraine

      2.38pm EST

      14:38

      Guilty verdict in first January 6 trial

      1.53pm EST

      13:53

      Experts condemn Florida over child Covid vaccine advice

      1.35pm EST

      13:35

      Summary

      11.29am EST

      11:29

      Biden: Russian oil will no longer be acceptable in US ports

      9.26am EST

      09:26

      Biden expected to ban Russian oil imports

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      2.13pm EST

      14:13

      Larry Elliott

      Joe Biden’s decision to ban imports of Russian oil increases the economic pressure on Vladimir Putin – but it is not without risk.
      On the face of it, the announcement from the White House looks like a bit of a free hit, given the fact that Russia accounts for just 7% of the oil imported by the world’s biggest economy. Three-fifths of Russia’s oil exports go to the EU, only 8% to the US.
      Even so, Biden is taking a gamble for three important reasons.

      The first risk is that a toughening up of sanctions has given another upward twist to oil prices. American motorists were already paying higher pump prices and as the US president admitted, they will soon be paying even more. Oil prices are up by 70% since the start of the year. The Oslo-based consultancy Rystad Energy has predicted a complete ban on Russian oil and gas could send crude prices to $200 a barrel. The previous milestone was $147, reached in 2008.
      The second risk is that Biden’s action fractures the western coalition against Putin, which has been solid. While support from the UK means the US is not going it alone , other European countries have misgivings. That is hardly surprising, because the EU gets 40% of its gas and just over a quarter of its oil from Russia.
      The third risk is that Putin gets in his retaliation first by cutting off supplies. The EU has announced steps to reduce its dependency on Russian oil and gas, and the crisis could well have the effect of speeding up the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. But in the short term the loss of such a big chunk of its energy supply would result in weaker growth and higher inflation.

      Here’s our story on Biden’s ban:

      4.48pm EST

      16:48

      Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine, is meeting today with Ketanji Brown Jackson, the nominee chosen by Joe Biden for supreme court.

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      Susan Collins’ meeting with Ketanji Brown Jackson has lasted about 90 minutes so far.

      March 8, 2022

      4.39pm EST

      16:39

      Here’s a snapshot of Joe Biden in Fort Worth, Texas today:

      Eli Stokols
      (@EliStokols)
      Biden upon landing in TX responds to @mikememoli question about what he’s going to do about rising gas prices: “Can’t do much right now,” he said. “..that’s Russia’s fault.” pic.twitter.com/l6iOBZCrfA

      March 8, 2022

      Eli Stokols
      (@EliStokols)
      .@POTUS at Fort Worth VA Clinic with veteran John Caruso, who demonstrated an “exoskeleton” that allows spinal cord injury patients to experience walking and standing.Biden told him he’s working on making them more widely available. pic.twitter.com/9xt2gZpVvY

      March 8, 2022

      4.17pm EST

      16:17

      The BBC will resume all English language reporting in Russia after temporarily suspending operations following the passage of the new law regarding “fake news”.
      Read more here:

      3.52pm EST

      15:52

      Poland ready to deploy all MIG-29 jets to US for Ukraine

      Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been begging the world to send planes to aid Ukraine in the fight against the Russian invasion. Today Poland said they were ready to deploy all its MIG-29 jets to Ramstein Air Base in Germany and put them at the disposal of the US.
      US lawmakers have been pushing for Joe Biden to facilitate the transfer of fighter aircraft to Ukraine from Poland and other Nato and Eastern European countries following a plea from Zelenskiy over the weekend. Yesterday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said it was a matter of logistics in what was preventing the US in helping get Polish planes to Ukraine. She repeatedly said the decision was up to Poland on whether to aid Ukraine with planes. “We are not preventing or blocking Poland,” she said.
      “It is not as easy as just moving planes around,” Psaki said. She pointed out that they would be taking off from a Nato airbase in Poland. “And where do they land?”
      Victoria Nuland, US undersecretary of state, said today that the move by Poland was not preconsulted and came as a surprise.

      Aaron Mehta
      (@AaronMehta)
      In a hearing right now @UnderSecStateP is asked if the US coordinated with Poland on its MiG-29 announcement.“Not to my knowledge. I was in a meeting where I ought to have heard about that just before I came. So I think that actually was a surprise move by the Poles.”

      March 8, 2022

      Phil Ewing
      (@philewing)
      OK. Here is what UnderSec Nuland, who is talking to Senate Foreign Relations rn, said about the Great Polish MiG Move. 👇 She made no commitment here about the U.S. facilitating the transfer of these jets to UKR. Quote per C-SPAN auto-transcript. pic.twitter.com/CUVSTkKwTq

      March 8, 2022

      Updated
      at 4.11pm EST

      3.14pm EST

      15:14

      Joe Biden is set to deliver remarks in Fort Worth, Texas in a few hours along with Denis McDonough, the secretary of veteran affairs, on expanding access to health care for veterans affected by military environmental exposures such as burn pits.

      Seung Min Kim
      (@seungminkim)
      BABA is taking off in Fort Worth pic.twitter.com/e3hBY8ulvg

      March 8, 2022

      3.02pm EST

      15:02

      Sam Levine

      The election administrator in Texas’ largest county has said she will step down after her office faced scrutiny over errors in the state’s 1 March primary. The administrator, Isabel Longoria, announced she would step down 1 July.
      Longoria’s office said there were 10,000 ballots – 6,000 Democratic and 4,000 Republican – that had erroneously not been included in the unofficial results from the primary. Her office also faced criticism for delays in reporting election night results.
      Harris county commissioners created an office dedicated to election administration in July 2020. Longoria was appointed to that office in October 2020. At the time, she was serving as a special adviser to election officials on voting rights.
      Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat and the top executive in Harris county, said on Tuesday she had requested a change in leadership in Longoria’s office.

      2.49pm EST

      14:49

      Here’s a quick update on the omnibus package, and the Ukraine funding that is included in it.
      To recap: Congress must pass an omnibus package to fund the US government by the Friday deadline or risk a shutdown. Aid to Ukraine as well as Covid relief funds are expected to be part of that package – but while Republicans and Democrats are butting heads as expected on Covid relief funds, there appears to be quite a bit of bipartisan cooperation around Ukraine funding.
      The White House requested $10bn on Friday. Lawmakers upped that number to $12bn last night. And now:

      Jake Sherman
      (@JakeSherman)
      NEW: @LeaderMcConnell says the Ukraine aid amount is now $14 billion. It’s ballooned from $6.4B to $10B to $12B to $14B

      March 8, 2022

      2.38pm EST

      14:38

      Guilty verdict in first January 6 trial

      Martin Pengelly

      The first Capitol rioter to go to jury trial has been convicted on all five charges he faced. More

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      How the US ban on Russian oil risks splitting the west’s response

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      How the US ban on Russian oil risks splitting the west’s responseAnalysis: The lights will not be going out in America but the same cannot be said for the EU, given its energy dependence on Moscow

      Ukraine-Russia war – latest updates
      Joe Biden’s decision to ban imports of Russian oil increases the economic pressure on Vladimir Putin – but it is not without risk.On the face of it, the announcement from the White House looks like a bit of a free hit, given the fact that Russia accounts for just 7% of the oil imported by the world’s biggest economy. Three-fifths of Russia’s oil exports go to the EU, only 8% to the US.Even so, Biden is taking a gamble for three important reasons. The first is that a toughening up of sanctions has given another upward twist to oil prices. American motorists were already paying higher pump prices, even before the latest surge in the cost of Brent crude above $130 a barrel and, as the US president admitted, they will soon be paying even more.Oil prices are up by 70% since the start of the year and there is no sign of them coming down anytime soon. The Oslo-based consultancy Rystad Energy has predicted a complete ban on Russian oil and gas could send crude prices to $200 a barrel. The previous milestone was the $147-a-barrel peak reached in 2008.The second risk is that Biden’s action fractures the western coalition against Putin, which in the first two weeks of the conflict has been solid. While support from the UK (phased in by the end of the year) means the US is not going it alone with its ban, other European countries clearly have misgivings. That is hardly surprising, because the EU gets 40% of its gas and just over a quarter of its oil from Russia.European oil receipts boosting Putin’s war chest by $285m a day, study findsRead moreSo when Biden said the west remained united in its determination to keep the pressure on Russia, that is not strictly true. The EU, as the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, made clear 24 hours before the US ban was announced, is worried about its energy security and has decided not to follow suit, for now at least. There is no risk of the lights going out in the US; the same could not be said of every country in Europe.This dependency on Russian energy creates a third risk, namely that Putin gets in his retaliation first by cutting off supplies. The EU has announced steps to reduce its dependency on Russian oil and gas, and the crisis could well have the effect of speeding up the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, but in the short term the loss of such a big chunk of its energy supply would result in weaker growth and higher inflation.While high energy prices eventually prove self-correcting because they tend to lead to recessions, the damage they can cause is considerable. UK living standards are on course for their biggest one-year fall since modern records began in the mid-1950s, with the war in Ukraine putting at risk the post-pandemic recovery. All of which makes it important that sanctions work quickly. The longer the economic war, the higher the cost.TopicsOilGasCommoditiesUS politicsEuropean UnionEuropeRussiaanalysisReuse this content More

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      US in ‘very active discussion’ with allies to ban import of Russian oil

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      US in ‘very active discussion’ with allies to ban import of Russian oilSecretary of state says Biden has convened a meeting of his National Security Council on the subject

      Blinken vows to escalate sanctions on Russia
      US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the US and its allies are engaged in a “very active discussion” about banning the import of Russian oil and natural gas in a new escalation of sanctions in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine.Blinken vows to escalate sanctions on Russia but warns war could last ‘some time’Read moreThe US and western allies have until now held off on current energy supplies from Russia, in order to avoid blowback on their own economies, where inflation is already making prices of gasoline and other goods a problem.Earlier this week, the White House publicly rebuffed suggestions from lawmakers that the US ban Russian oil, which made up 3% of all the crude shipments that arrived in the US last year, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration.But Europe is far more dependent, with an estimated 30% of oil and 39% of gas supplies coming from Russia.Blinken told CNN on Sunday morning that Joe Biden convened a meeting of his National Security Council on the subject the day before.“We are now talking to our European partners and allies to look in a coordinated way at the prospect of banning the import of Russian oil while making sure that there is still an appropriate supply of oil on world market,” said Blinken. “That’s a very active discussion as we speak.”Republicans and a growing number of Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, back the idea of a Russian oil import ban, arguing that Russia’s lucrative exports fund Putin’s war effort.“I’m all for that… ban the oil coming from Russia,” Pelosi said at her weekly press briefing on Capitol Hill on Thursday. But the White House has maintained that it doesn’t want to cause domestic fuel prices to rise.“We don’t have a strategic interest in reducing the global supply of energy,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki has said.Energy analysts have warned that there are limited options for maintaining oil supplies without Russian imports. OPEC Plus member countries, which include Russia, last week rejected increasing production , and global inventories of oil are low.Oil rose to $117 a barrel last week, the highest price since 2008. One option to maintain price stability, analysts have said, is to reduce demand – a process known to traders as “demand destruction.”On Sunday’s US TV talk shows, Florida senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, said he supported Biden’s resistance to issuing a Russian oil import ban so far. But he said the US could “phase that in pretty rapidly” using “reserves for the purposes of buffering that”.“We have more than enough ability in this country to produce enough oil to make up for the percentage that we buy from Russia,” Rubio said, adding that: “This notion that somehow banning Russian oil would raise prices on American consumers is an admission that this guy, that this killer, that this butcher, Vladimir Putin, has leverage over us.”“I think we have enough that we should produce more American oil and buy less Russian oil or none – actually, none at all,” Rubio added.But the issue of producing more oil in the US is a controversial one, with partisan battles over the role of government in using laws to curb greenhouse gas emissions and wean Americans off fossil fuels in the face of the climate crisis.TopicsBiden administrationOilAntony BlinkenUS politicsRussiaEuropenewsReuse this content More

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      US fossil fuel industry leaps on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to argue for more drilling

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      US fossil fuel industry leaps on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to argue for more drillingPetroleum lobby calls for looser regulation and drilling on public lands to ‘ensure energy security’ The US oil and gas industry is using Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to pressure the Biden administration to throw open more land and ocean for domestic drilling and to loosen regulations for large companies attempting to ramp up their fossil fuel extraction.Just hours before Russian troops began their unprovoked assault on Ukraine, the American Petroleum Institute (API) posted a string of tweets calling for the White House to “ensure energy security at home and abroad” by allowing more oil and gas drilling on public lands, extend drilling in US waters and slash regulations faced by fossil fuel firms.API, which represents oil giants including Exxon, Chevron and Shell, has called on Biden to allow an expansion of drilling and to drop regulations that impede new gas pipelines in order to help reduce fuel costs for Americans and support European countries that have seen gas costs spiral due to concerns over supply from Russia, which provides Europe with around a third of its gas.“At a time of geopolitical strife, America should deploy its ample energy abundance – not restrict it,” said Mike Sommers, the chief executive of API. Sommers added that Biden was “needlessly choking our own plentiful supply” of fossil fuels.Some leading Republicans have joined the calls. “No administration should defend a Russian pipeline instead of refilling ours,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, told her state’s legislature this week. “Every day, I remind the Biden administration of the immense benefits of Alaska production, energy and minerals alike, and every day I remind them that refusing to permit those activities can have harmful consequences.”Environmental groups were quick to criticize the renewed push for more drilling, accusing proponents of cynically using the deadly Ukrainian crisis to benefit large corporations and worsen the climate crisis.“Expanding oil and gas production now would do nothing to impact short term prices and would only accelerate the climate crisis, which already poses a major threat to our national security,” said Lena Moffitt, chief of staff at Evergreen Action, a climate group. “We stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, and stand opposed to actions by leaders of the fossil fuel industry that attempt to profit off of these harrowing atrocities.”Russia has faced a barrage of sanctions from the US and the European Union, although the western allies have so far largely steered clear of targeting the country’s vast oil and gas industry. Biden has said the sanctions will “end up costing Russia dearly, economically and strategically” but has not applied punitive measures to Rosneft, Russia’s state-owned oil company.The US president faces the opposing pressures of dealing with the climate crisis while avoiding the political headache of rising gasoline prices for American drivers. On Thursday, the price of a barrel of crude oil rose to more than $100 on the global market for the first time since 2014, amid fears over Russia’s supply.A group of 10 congressional Democrats wrote to Biden on Thursday to urge the president to release more oil from the US’s strategic petroleum reserve in order to lower fuel costs for consumers in the short term. “We know that in the long-term, eliminating US dependence on oil will provide the stability we need to keep energy costs low for American households,” the lawmakers acknowledged.The European bloc is thrashing out a plan for a long-term shift away from dependence on the fluctuating fossil fuel markets, with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, outlining the need for “strategic independence on energy”. Europe is “doubling down on renewables”, she added.The Ukraine crisis could prove to be a “turning point” in global energy consumption, said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. “There will be a transition to clean energy… it will be a difficult one, but I believe the governments will have to manage a transition if we want a planet that is safe and clean in the future,” he said.The development of solar and wind power has grown strongly in the US in recent years, although fossil fuels still account for about 80% of domestic energy consumption. Scientists have warned that emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas must be rapidly and drastically slashed if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate impacts such as heatwaves, floods, food insecurity and societal unrest.“Clean energy is affordable and reliable; we can’t afford to wait any longer to free ourselves from the volatility of the fossil fuel market and the dictators and violence it enables,” said Moffitt.TopicsUkraineOilEuropeUS politicsBiden administrationFossil fuelsReuse this content More

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      Kyrsten Sinema courted Republican fossil fuel donors with filibuster stance

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      Kyrsten Sinema courted Republican fossil fuel donors with filibuster stance Houston fundraiser reveals Democrat’s aggressive efforts to capitalize on her Senate power on matters ranging from climate to taxes With a crucial vote pending over filibuster rules that would have made strong voting rights legislation feasible, Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema flew into Houston, Texas, for a fundraiser that drew dozens of fossil fuel chieftains, including Continental Resources chairman Harold Hamm and ConocoPhillips chief executive Ryan Lance.The event was held on 18 January at the upmarket River Oaks Country Club. One executive told the Guardian that Sinema spoke for about half an hour and informed a mostly Republican crowd that they could “rest assured” she would not back any changes with filibuster rules, reiterating a stance she took several days before during a Senate speech.The Arizona senator also addressed some energy industry issues according to the executive, who added that overall he was “tremendously impressed”.The day after the Houston bash, Sinema voted against changing filibuster rules, thereby helping to thwart the voting rights bill.The Houston gusher of fossil fuel donations for Sinema from many stalwart Republican donors underscores how pivotal she has become, along with West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin, in an evenly divided Senate involving high-stakes battles for Republican and fossil fuel interests.Campaign finance watchdogs say that the Houston fundraiser reveals much about Sinema’s aggressive efforts to capitalize on her Senate power on matters ranging from climate change to taxes to the filibuster rule.“Sinema isn’t up for re-election this year, but she’s fundraising full-tilt,” Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of OpenSecrets, told the Guardian. “By her comment to oil-industry attendees last week, she clearly knew her vote to protect the filibuster would please them.”The Houston fundraiser, which was expected to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the senator’s campaign coffers, offers a stark example of how Sinema has been courting major Republican donors and special interests who, in turn, seem to be increasingly eager to help her.Sinema’s drive to rope in more big Republican donors was also apparent at a September fundraiser in Dallas at the $18m home of G Brint Ryan, a prominent Republican donor and CEO of a global consulting company, who hosted another money bash last year for Manchin.Sinema’s stance against changing filibuster rules has also won her support from other top Republican donors such as Stan Hubbard, a Minnesota billionaire broadcaster who gave her $2,900 last September, which reportedly was the first donation he made to a Democrat since 2019.Hubbard told the Guardian that her opposition to the filibuster was a crucial reason he donated, adding that it would “be terrible to get rid of the filibuster”, and that he thought voting rights were “just fine”, without passing a Democrat-backed bill to protect them.Little wonder that voting rights advocates were dismayed by Sinema’s staunch opposition to any changes with the filibuster.“We are very disappointed that Senator Sinema has put formalistic rules over protecting our democracy,” said Danielle Lang, the senior director of voting rights at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.Sinema’s position on the filibuster rule has sparked anger among liberal backers such as the powerful group Emily’s List, which endorses Democratic women who support abortion rights. One week after Sinema gave a floor speech indicating that she wouldn’t support altering filibuster rules, Emily’s List publicly stated that the group would no longer endorse her.In her floor speech backing the filibuster rule, Sinema touted the need for more bipartisanship, stressing that she would not “support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country”.But Sinema’s vote and speech only spurred more criticism in Arizona where the state Democratic party issued a rare censure in the wake of her continued support for the filibuster.Arizona’s Democratic party chair Raquel Teran has stated that the vote was a “result of her failure to do whatever it takes to ensure the health of our democracy”.More broadly, Democratic angst about Sinema was highlighted by a January tracking poll before her filibuster vote that showed just 8% of registered Arizona Democrats had a favorable view of the Senator.The recent poll reflects a steep drop from the 70% positive rating the Senator had in 2020. Her declining popularity also has been spurred by the senator’s voting against raising the federal minimum wage, and skipping a Senate vote to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 mob attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.Sinema has also drawn brickbats from Democrats for her unwillingness last month to endorse the House passed Build Back Better legislation that she and Manchin were instrumental in whittling down from the measure’s original size, while accelerating their fundraising outreach to rightwing donors and lobbyists.Sinema told Democratic senators according to the New York Times that she was opposed to any tax increases in personal rates or corporate rates to pay for the bill, which included approximately $550bn for clean energy and climate change measures, a crucial part of President Joe Biden’s agenda.Leftwing Vermont senator Bernie Sanders was especially irked when both Sinema and Manchin joined all the Senate Republicans in blocking the filibuster rule change, saying that they “forced us to go through five months of discussions which have gotten absolutely nowhere”, and indicating he might support primary challengers to both senators.Veteran Arizona Republican consultant Chuck Coughlin noted that Sinema “clearly understands the electoral position she is in, and is using this opportunity to raise as much as she can in order to make challenging her a herculean task – whether she runs as a Democrat or an independent.”Coughlin’s analysis seems on target based on the very robust $4.4m that Sinema’s campaign had in the bank at the end of September.Charlie Black, a longtime Republican operative and lobbyist, added that “Sinema’s gotten a lot of support from the business community, including both Republicans and Democrats.”Still, with Democratic attacks on Sinema increasing, the odds are good that if she opts to run again in 2024 she will have a primary opponent, perhaps Congressman Ruben Gallego, who has publicly suggested he might challenge her, and knocked the senator over her filibuster vote.A group called the Primary Sinema Project that began last summer has raised at least $330,000, including $100,000 during the week after her filibuster speech.Sinema’s drive to raise big bucks early seems to be underscored by the jump last year in donations from fossil fuel interests, according to campaign finance data.Last year, Sinema hauled in $24,310 from fossil fuel donors compared with just $7,522 the year before, according to OpenSecrets.Although there’s no data yet on how much Sinema raised in Houston, a veteran fossil fuel lobbyist told the Guardian that donors at such fundraisers are often asked to pony up the maximum of $5,800 to the senator’s campaign committee, and write another check for as much as $5,000 to the senator’s leadership Pac.For Krumholz of OpenSecrets, the Houston fundraiser offers a broader message.“The timing of the fundraiser and Sinema’s filibuster-protecting vote really puts a fine point on the return on investment for her donors.”Krumholz added that the fossil fuel fundraiser “seems well timed as Congress revisits the $550bn BBB measure focused on climate change provisions, where her vote could help industry minimize new regulatory and tax burdens.”TopicsOil and gas companiesUS SenateDemocratsUS politicsOilnewsReuse this content More

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      Exxon CEO accused of lying about climate science to congressional panel

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      Climate crimesEnvironmentExxon CEO accused of lying about climate science to congressional panelCongresswoman Carolyn Maloney likens oil company bosses’ responses to those of tobacco industry at historic hearing Supported byAbout this contentChris McGrealThu 28 Oct 2021 17.05 EDTFirst published on Thu 28 Oct 2021 16.33 EDTThe chief executive of ExxonMobil, Darren Woods, was accused of lying to Congress on Thursday after he denied that the company covered up its own research about oil’s contribution to the climate crisis.For the first time, Woods and the heads of three other major petroleum companies were questioned under oath at a congressional hearing into the industry’s long campaign to discredit and deny the evidence that burning fossil fuels drove global heating. When pressed to make specific pledges or to stop lobbying against climate initiatives, all four executives declined.Joe Manchin leads opposition to Biden’s climate bill, backed by support from oil, gas and coalRead moreThe chair of the House oversight committee, Representative Carolyn Maloney, pressed Woods about statements by his predecessor, Exxon CEO Lee Raymond, who in the 1990s said the scientific evidence for climate change was “inconclusive” and that “the case for global warming is far from air tight”. In 2002, Exxon ran advertisements in the New York Times calling climate science “unsettled”.Malone put it to Woods that Exxon’s own scientists had repeatedly warned the company about the threat from burning fossil fuels as far back as the 1970s.“There is a clear conflict between what Exxon CEO told the public and what Exxon scientists were warning privately for years,” she said.Woods denied that Raymond or Exxon misled anyone.“I do not agree that there was an inconsistency,” he said.Maloney said the response reminded her of “another hearing that we had with the tobacco industry”.“They said they did not believe that nicotine was addictive. Well, it came out that they lied. Tobacco nicotine was very addictive. And now I’m hearing from you that the science that was reported publicly, where your executives were denying climate change, we know that your scientists internally were saying that it’s a reality,” she said.“So I was hoping that you would not be like the tobacco industry was and lie about this.”The heads of the American operations of the other oil companies – Shell, Chevron and BP – were also firm in resisting pressure to admit they misrepresented climate science or deceived the public.They each said that they recognised global heating was a reality and a major challenge. But the executives did not accept that their companies had failed to take it seriously or that they were undermining attempts to cut greenhouse gases by funding trade groups pouring millions of dollars into lobbying Congress against tighter environmental laws.“We accept the scientific consensus,” said Michael Wirth, the CEO of Chevron. “Climate change is real. Any suggestion that Chevron is engaged in disinformation and to mislead the public on these complex issues is simply wrong.”But Maloney accused the oil companies of continuing the cover-up, including by hiding documents. She said she would take the unusual step of issuing subpoenas to force the firms to reveal what they knew.“We need to get to the bottom of the oil industry’s disinformation campaign and with these subpoenas we will,” she said.The oil and gas industry, which spent about $100m on political lobbying last year, was strongly backed by a number of Republicans on the committee who sought to distract by denouncing Joe Biden’s energy policies.Republicans called their own witness, Neal Crabtree, who said he lost his job as a welder within three hours of Biden being sworn in as president because the Keystone pipeline was cancelled. Crabtree was used to portray Biden as colluding with China and Russia against America’s oil industry.The highest-ranking Republican on the committee, Representative James Comer, questioned the legitimacy of the investigation. He said the committee would be better off spending its time investigating the White House’s handling of inflation, illegal immigration and the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan.In a hearing meant to focus on climate misinformation, several Republican members openly questioned the urgency of the climate crisis. Representative Clay Higgins called the hearing “a threat from within” because the American way of life was built on oil.Another Republican member said Maloney owed the oil executives an apology for intruding on their right to free speech by pressing them to make a commitment that their firms will “no longer spend any money, either directly or indirectly, to oppose efforts to reduce emissions and address climate change”.None of the executives would make a direct commitment.Maloney showed the hearing a video secretly recorded by Greenpeace earlier this year of an Exxon lobbyist describing the oil giant’s backing for a carbon tax as a public relations ploy intended to stall more serious measures to combat the climate crisis.“How did Exxon respond?” asked Maloney. “Did they come clean about this shocking conduct? No. Mr Woods called Mr McCoy’s comments inaccurate and then they fired him. And they are obviously lying like the tobacco executives were.”While the oil executives largely maintained a united front, Representative Ro Khanna, a leading critic of the petroleum industry on the committee, drew out testimony that showed the European companies, Shell and BP, were working to cut production while the US firms, Exxon and Chevron, intended to increase drilling in the coming years.Wirth said that his company would raise oil production while cutting carbon admissions.The hearing also questioned the leaders of two powerful lobby groups accused of acting as front organisations for big oil, the American Petroleum Institute and the US Chamber of Commerce.Khanna noted that API was heavily funded by oil company money as it resisted the expansion of infrastructure for electric vehicles and opposed a methane fee backed by Biden, including flooding Facebook with advertisements in recent months.Khanna challenged each of the oil executives in turn to resign from API over its position on electric vehicles or to tell it to stop its opposition to a methane fee. All of them declined to do so.TopicsEnvironmentClimate crimesExxonMobilBPRoyal Dutch ShellChevronOil and gas companiesOilnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Oil executives face ‘turning point’ US congressional hearing on climate crisis

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      Climate crimesUS CongressOil executives face ‘turning point’ US congressional hearing on climate crisisThe heads of top US oil companies will answer accusations that their firms have spent years lying about the climate crisis Supported byAbout this contentChris McGrealThu 28 Oct 2021 03.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 28 Oct 2021 03.01 EDTThe heads of major oil companies will make a historic appearance before Congress on Thursday to answer accusations that their firms have spent years lying about the climate crisis.For the first time, the top executives from the US’s largest oil company, ExxonMobil, as well as Shell, Chevron and BP will be questioned under oath about the industry’s long campaign to discredit and deny the evidence that burning fossil fuels drove global heating.The dirty dozen: meet America’s top climate villainsRead moreA leading critic of the petroleum industry behind the hearing by the House oversight committee, Representative Ro Khanna, said the executives’ testimony has the potential to be as significant as the 1994 congressional hearing at which the heads of the big tobacco companies were confronted with the question of whether they knew nicotine was addictive.They denied it and that lie opened the door to years of litigation which resulted in a $206bn settlement against the cigarette makers.Khanna told the Guardian that the oil company chiefs face a similar moment of reckoning.“They’ve got a very tricky balance. They either have to admit certain wrongdoing or they run the risk of lying under oath. If I were them, I would come in with more of a mea culpa approach and acknowledge what they’ve done wrong,” he said.“It’ll be a turning point for them. It could be the big tobacco moment. We’ve never had a situation where the big oil executives have to answer under oath for their company’s behaviour.”Khanna said that he wanted Americans to take away the message from the hearing that the oil companies “knew they lied” about the climate emergency.The CEOs, who have opted to testify by video, are Darren Woods of Exxon, David Lawler of BP American, Michael Wirth of Chevron and the president of Shell, Gretchen Watkins.The leaders of two powerful lobby groups accused of acting as front organisations for big oil, the American Petroleum Institute and the US Chamber of Commerce, will also testify.Khanna said the oil chiefs will be confronted with evidence of a persistent and coordinated cover-up, including documents that have not been made public before.“The documents confirm the misinformation and deception that they’ve engaged in in the past explicitly, and that they continue to engage in through third parties,” he said. “The record is so clear that they will be risking perjuring themselves if they deny the record.”But the hearing will also be a test for whether the oil industry’s critics can back up their claims of a sprawling conspiracy by the fossil fuel companies to block action on the climate emergency – an accusation also made in dozens of lawsuits by US states, municipalities and private organisations.Geoffrey Supran, a research associate at Harvard’s department of history of science and co-author of a groundbreaking study of Exxon’s communications on the climate crisis, said the oil executives are well-practiced at sidestepping responsibility.“This will be a challenging hearing. This is a situation where the historical record is incontrovertible but the climate denial machine has been like a sprawling, well-oiled, well-funded network for decades,” he said. “Given the range of actors and tactics involved, asking the right questions at the right time, having the right documents at your fingertips to pin them into a corner is tricky.”The hearings follow the release of a growing body of evidence that the oil industry knew about and covered up the growing threat from burning fossil fuels for decades. That includes a raft of Exxon documents held at the University of Texas, and uncovered by the Columbia Journalism School and the Los Angeles Times in 2015.In 1979, a study by Exxon’s own scientists concluded that burning fossil fuels “will cause dramatic environmental effects” in the coming decades. It called the issue “great and urgent”.Exxon’s response to that and similar warnings was to shut down research into global heating and to go on a public relations offensive to discredit climate science as no more than a theory, and to shift responsibility on to consumers.In 2019, Martin Hoffert, a professor of physics at New York University, told a congressional hearing that his climate modelling for Exxon in the 1980s showed that burning fossil fuels was “increasingly having a perceptible influence on Earth’s climate”.Meanwhile the company was pushing a different narrative.“Exxon was publicly promoting views that its own scientists knew were wrong, and we knew that because we were the major group working on this. This was immoral and has greatly set back efforts to address climate change,” said Hoffert.Other oil firms face similar accusations alongside trade groups and thinktanks they funded to deny climate science.This story is published as part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of news outlets strengthening coverage of the climate storyTopicsUS CongressClimate crimesExxonMobilRoyal Dutch ShellChevronBPOilUS politicsnewsReuse this content More